A new study published in the journal Toxicology Reports has warned that the health risks caused by the Covid-19 vaccines are too high for children. Scientists from the United States and Europe reached this conclusion through reviewing data showing that the risks related to vaccines outweigh any potential benefits they may provide to younger people.

One of their chief concerns was the fact that coronavirus is relatively low risk to young people. The report states: “The bulk of the official COVID-19-attributed deaths per capita occur in the elderly with high comorbidities, and the COVID-19 attributed deaths per capita are negligible in children.”

A second concern the scientists hold is that the clinical vaccine trials took place over just a few months and that the samples used did not represent the overall population. The small size of the vaccine trials in adolescents and children have poor predictive power, and the trials did not address any changes in biomarkers that would have served as early warning indicators of a higher predisposition to serious disease.

Furthermore, the long-term effects of the vaccine were ignored. The authors of the report wrote: “Most importantly, the clinical trials did not address long-term effects that, if serious, would be borne by children/adolescents for potentially decades.”

Scientists cited the high number of post-vaccination deaths reported in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). It is worth noting that this system has been historically shown to only report around 1% of the actual vaccine adverse reactions that occur, which the authors of this report point out.

Additionally, the deaths shown in VAERS so far are only short-term – around one month in children – which means it doesn’t take into account potential deaths in the immediate and long term from issues such as clotting, autoimmune effects, and antibody-dependent enhancement that take longer to develop.

The report added that in a conservative cost-benefit analysis of the best-case scenario, there are five times as many deaths attributable to each vaccination versus those that can be attributed to the disease in the most vulnerable demographic, people aged 65 and above. Due to the fact that the risk of dying from Covid-19 reduces dramatically as age decreases, the longer-term effects of these jabs on the younger age groups could raise their risk-benefit ratio substantially.

Despite this, Pfizer recently announced that clinical trials have shown that its vaccine is “safe and effective” in children aged 5 to 11 at a dose of a third of the amount being given to adolescents and adults and that they plan to submit their data to the FDA soon. This came only three days after an FDA advisory panel voted against Pfizer’s application for a Covid-19 booster vaccine for Americans over 16.

The FDA cited several concerns in their decision, including a lack of sufficient data to assess the risks of Pfizer’s vaccine to younger groups. They highlighted the potential risk of heart inflammation – known as myocarditis – particularly among young men aged 16 and 17. Currently, the vaccine only has emergency use authorisation for children aged 12 to 15.

Pfizer is also studying the effects of the vaccine in even younger age groups, including ages 2 to 5 and six months to age 2. These trials are still ongoing and are yet to conclude. Trials are taking place in more than 90 locations in the US, Spain, Poland, and Finland, whereby some volunteers have been previously infected with the virus and others have not. Other big pharma giants including Johnson & Johnson and Moderna have also started studying their vaccines in children but trials are still ongoing.

In the UK, the Covid-19 vaccine is now being rolled out for children aged 12 to 15 years old, with Scotland being the first to invite children to get the jab. It is expected that the rest of the UK will be offering the vaccine to younger children in October. This decision contradicts the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s (JCVI) recommendation that the vaccine should not be administered to younger children, except for those with underlying health conditions.

“A precautionary approach was agreed given the very low risk of serious disease in those aged 12 to 15 years without an underlying health condition that puts them at increased risk. Given this very low risk, considerations on the potential harms and benefits of vaccination are very finely balanced,” the JCVI stated.

Yet, the UK government ignored this advice and pressed forward to rollout the vaccine for children anyway, despite the fact that children are not at risk from coronavirus and in most cases do not fall seriously unwell.